biblioklept treasures and adorns the books he has acquired; and when
he dies, or goes to prison, the State receives the benefit at his
sale. Thus Libri, who was the greatest of biblioklepts, rescued
many of the books he stole from dirt and misuse, and had them bound
royally in purple and gold. Also, it may be argued that books
naturally belong to him who can appreciate them; and if good books
are in a dull or indifferent man's keeping, this is the sort of
slavery which we call "unnatural" in our POLITICS, and which is not
to be endured. Shall we say, then, that the Robustious Philistine
is the worse citizen, while the Biblioklept is the worse man? But
this is perhaps matter for a separate disquisition."

This fragment of the lost Aristotelian treatise "Concerning Books,"
shows what a difficulty the Stagirite had in determining the precise
nature of the moral offence of the biblioklept. Indeed, both as a
collector and as an intuitive moralist, Aristotle must have found it
rather difficult to condemn the book-thief. He, doubtless, went on
to draw distinctions between the man who steals books to sell them
again for mere pecuniary profit (which he would call "chrematistic,"
or "unnatural," book-stealing), and the man who steals them because
he feels that he is their proper and natural possessor. The same
distinction is taken by Jules Janin, who was a more constant student
of Horace than of Aristotle. In his imaginary dialogue of
bibliophiles, Janin introduces a character who announces the death
of M. Libri. The tolerant person who brings the sad news proposes
"to cast a few flowers on the melancholy tomb. He was a
bibliophile, after all. What do you say to it? Many a good fellow
has stolen books, and died in grace at the last." "Yes," replies
the president of the club, "but the good fellows did not sell the
books they stole . . . Cest une grande honte, une grande misere."